Webbed Finger Boy

I was reminded today why I have the best internship in the world (I'm currently ignoring the fact that Bonney interviewed Daniel Craig for CBS and that the other Sara and Ashley group have been to several movie premieres).

We had model casting for our two upcoming photo shoots for our magazine. For our costume jewellery supplement, we needed two funky-looking girls. We wanted two classically beautiful people for the other shot.

I introduced myself to Will the photographer. Per Jenni's request, I asked him if he would like something to drink. He said that he would LOVE a cup of tea. I smiled, said, "Okay, great!" in a super chippy voice, turned around, and thought to myself, "Oh crap." I have never made a cup of tea in my life. After briefly considering running to the coffee shop across the street, I stepped into our floor's mini kitchen, stood in the middle of the floor and just looked around for a cup of tea descending from the paneled ceiling. No such luck. Instead, help walked past the open door.

"KEYA!" I squealed. "I need your help." I'm not exactly sure what Keya does, but she takes my Tube receipt and makes sure that my bank account gets reimbursed. She's also so sweet, so cute, and she just saw Michael Jackson and Lindsay Lohan last week. She's pretty much awesome.

Keya directed me to a plastic bag full of, well, tea bags that was sitting on the counter. She then pointed at the milk and the sugar and handed me a mug. Thinking she was done, she smiled and left me. How long do you let tea bags sit anyway? I plopped it in the steaming water and stirred it around aimlessly until I was bored of letting my mind wander. In went some milk, in went the sugar cubes, and I even managed to get it to Will without spilling it! AND I even confessed that it was my first cup of tea ever (I'm always easily forgiven - I'm an American, after all), and he even drank it all!! I knew I liked him.

My job was to answer the phones and go downstairs to fetch the models when they arrived. My job got very interesting on the second phone call. I went downstairs and ushered in a tall skinny brunette with a somewhat angled bob. "Hi, I'm Ashley!" "Hi, I'm Leanna!" "Nice to meet you, Leanna." I took Leanna upstairs and led her into the room with Will. I made my way back to my desk where I find Fran FREAKING OUT and furiously trying to tap out Ash's extension on her phone. "Do you know who that is?!?!" she squealed. "Leanna...?" I ventured. "You mean BRITAIN'S NEXT TOP MODEL!" Oh yes. Leanna Fowler, the winner of Season 2 of Britain's Next Top Model, which just ended 5 weeks ago. My second encounter with celebrity-ism. Cha-cha-check.

The next phone came from Marion in reception not too long afterwards. "I have three of them for you!" Marion chirped, who didn't sound so chipper 45 minutes and 12 phone calls later. "Be right down!" I chirped back, also not sounding as excited after 30 rounds of going up and down the lift. I open the ground floor door to usher in the next group of models when I see boys. Beautiful, BEAUTIFUL boys who happen to be professional models. One of them, Cliff, a chiseled Australian with floppy blonde hair became an instant favorite. After every interview, Fran would open the conference door and we would give each other a Look. After Cliff walked out, her eyes bugged out and she looked at me with her jaw on the floor. She was in love. She falls quickly.

Besides Leanna and Cliff, there was also "Webbed Finger Boy". Poor, poor Webbed Finger Boy. This kid was GORGEOUS. Jenni, Fran and Will - being experts and all - are very good at checking people out for every possible flaw. Since this is for a jewellery shot, the face, ears, neck, arms and hands are very important. Jenni's eyes just happened to wander down to this beautiful boy's webbed fingers. "He couldn't even get a ring past his knuckle! There was nowhere left for it to go!" she said. There was also the, "I promise I'll give him a call back for our next underwater photo shoot", but don't worry - I tried not to laugh too hard.

All in all, there were probably 25-30 people who came for casting. Jenni and Fran narrowed the choices down to about 10. They then entertained me with reasons for dismissing the others - one didn't have her ears pierced; another was a 'fat chav'; another was simply dismissed for being 'Parisian'. There was the girl who was busy on the day of the shoot, the girl who was too old, the girl who had more bags and wrinkles under her eyes than Jenni's 96-year-old grandmother. AND she was wearing make-up, the ultimate no-no for a fashion shoot (who knew?). One really cute boy was eliminated because I didn't like his attitude (LOOK AT MY POWER!!!). We held a brief conference right before I left for the day and decided on Britain's Next Top Model and a pretty black girl named Tope for our funky-looking girl picks; and Cliff (obviously!) and Thea, a brunette who I swear looks like a mousy Kelly Kapowski, for the other shoot. We still have to see what the photographer thinks, but those will probably be our choices. The photo shoot is my last week here! Yay!